


Long Night Searching for Grace

by embroiderama



Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Keptverse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-19
Updated: 2010-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-06 11:38:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slave, formerly a free man, comes to understand that his body is truly not his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Night Searching for Grace

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in [](http://poisontaster.livejournal.com/profile)[**poisontaster**](http://poisontaster.livejournal.com/)'s fabulous [What We Keep 'verse](http://community.livejournal.com/whatwekeep/). Thank you so much, PT, for writing AKB and opening up the 'verse to the rest of us! Anyway, I've never written these guys before, but I wanted to get away from the central pairings of the 'verse. I hope I didn't totally screw it up. The title is from Hem's "Leave me Here."
> 
> Timeline: The main part of this story is set approx. 14 years before the present-day of AKB, so the XF actors are the ages they were in S1/S2 of the show.

Most days, Mitch tried not to think about his wife. Not that she didn't deserve to be remembered, but it was too hard to think that she might be somewhere watching what he'd become.

When they'd opened up their restaurant together, they thought one day they'd be able to afford a couple of slaves at home, at least one to help with the children, once children came along. She ran the kitchen and invented all the recipes that drew in customers; he kept the front of the house in order, did the books. And when she got sick, he would have given anything for her. When the loans on the house and the business ran out and the doctors said they had one more treatment they could try, she was too ill to know he put his freedom up as collateral.

And when she died, the restaurant she had loved like a child fell apart, and that year in the Commerce training facility felt like a punishment he deserved.

~~~

Lord Douglas's estate sprawled across some of the best real estate in Southern California. Inherited from his father, the man who had built the family up from being simple free men, the property employed hundreds of slaves in the home and on the grounds. On hot summer afternoons, Mitch would often look out at the slaves watering and mowing the vast lawns and wonder if life wouldn't be simpler out there where he'd rarely have to speak to a free man, rarely be reminded of his former life.

From a closet-sized office in the rear of the house, Mitch managed the household supplies, coordinated with the kitchen staff to order food and livestock, kept the cleaning staff's shelves stocked with everything they needed to make the house gleam, to clean up the messes Lord Douglas left behind him. He tracked the expenses racked up by Lord Douglas's various agents and managed the lower-level agents, the ones responsible for keeping the house decorated to the current fashion and other things that were of little consequence as far as Mitch was concerned. He reported to the head of household staff, Mr. Davis, and his main goal each day was to keep the man's carrion eye off his own back.

Lord Douglas's body slave had free reign when it came to the expenses he racked up, keeping himself in the best clothes, the most expensive haircuts. Mitch processed the papers, but he had no authority to curtail the man's spending in any way. Still, the body slave, David, kept finding excuses to linger in Mitch's doorway. He'd lean his long body against the door jam, hip cocked out to the side, and watch Mitch from behind his bangs, his presence making the tiny room feel even smaller.

Most afternoons, Mitch walked out onto the grounds to consult with the head of the vegetable gardens and the orchard, a small young woman who reminded him so much of his wife that the first time he saw her he'd nearly fallen to his knees in the shade of the lemon trees. Gillian's eyes had been kind as she held onto his arm, but when he started to explain he saw that she'd been born into this life, her freedom lost before she was ever born. He mustered up a smile to let her know he was okay and she began to talk--her voice thankfully nothing like Arlene's--giving her report on the expected output of fruit for the summer.

The afternoon that Gillian told Mitch the new pomegranate trees were on their way to producing a respectable crop for the fall, Mitch was stopped on his way back to the house by the sound of his name being called in a low voice from behind the hedge that sheltered the outdoor pool from the rest of the grounds. He closed his eyes and ignored the call for a moment, knowing what he would find when he walked through the high wooden gate. For the past few weeks, the body slave David had been learning his schedule, synching his swimming workouts with Mitch's trips out to the grounds.

Mitch shook his head at the uselessness of trying to ignore Lord Douglas's favorite slave and pushed through the gate. As he had expected, David was just emerging from the pool. He hoisted himself up onto the stone-paved terrace and pushed his wet hair back from his face, sleek as a seal against his head. Despite the sun, David never quite tanned, and the broad expanses of pale, waxed-smooth skin gleamed with water droplets. Mitch tried to look away, training his eyes on the wavering blue pool, but the sound of that low monotone drew his gaze back to the man.

"Any good news from the gardens, Mitch? Anything new I should ask our lord to request specially?" A thick lock of wet hair fell forward onto David's face, and he pushed it back, looking up at Mitch through his overly-long eyelashes.

"Between the gardens and the markets, we can source anything Lord Douglas wishes."

"I'll just have to think of something special, then." David stood up, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back, revealing just how little flesh his tiny bathing suit could manage to cover. "He lets me call him Michael, you know, when we're not with company. He lets me have," he paused and looked straight at Mitch, "and do most everything I want."

Mitch nodded and turned to walk back into the house. The words _and what if what you wanted was your freedom_ sitting on the back of his tongue like sickness.

~~~

There was a kind of freedom Mitch had turned away from when he married Arlene. She knew he had been with as many men as women before they got together, and the fact that she didn't ask him to give it all up made it that much easier for him do it. He would look sometimes and let her catch him looking, and she'd smile at him with a smirk and playful eyes.

After she got sick, he was careful to never, never look.

~~~

Mr. Davis's dry, lined face was the last thing Mitch wanted to see when he returned to his quarters at the end of the day. "Lord Douglas would like to see you in the North Wing at 11 p.m."

"The North Wing?" Mitch had rarely spoken with the lord himself, and he'd never been in the part of the house where the Douglases and their guests slept.

"In the master suite." Mr. Davis lifted one gray, eloquent eyebrow.

"Yes, sir. I'll be there at eleven." Mitch swallowed against the thought of what Lord Douglas might want with an administrative slave in his personal rooms. In the evening.

"Very good." Davis nodded and walked away, leaving Mitch alone in his small, bare room.

An hour later, in the male house slaves' bathing area, Mitch showered off the must of the root cellar and the dust of the storage closet, and he tried not to even think about touching his own body. If the Commerce trainers had drilled one thing into his head, it was that his body didn't belong to him anymore. His heart hadn't been his own since he'd put it in Arlene's small fragile hand, and now every inch of his body belonged to Commerce, sold to pay for the poisons that had taken Arlene away from him. Owned by Commerce, contracted to Lord Michael Douglas, not quite a human being anymore even though the face in the mirror was not so different from the one he'd called his own for forty years.

At five minutes to eleven, Mitch left the South Wing, nodded to the security guard and crossed the broad, moonlit atrium that led to the North Wing. Up a flight of stairs and down the hall to the gold-leaf traced double doors that led to Lord Douglas's suite. One of the lord's personal slaves opened the door and let him into a sitting room. She silently nodded at the door across the room that was set ajar and then left, pulling the double doors shut behind her.

The room was lit only by a single dim lamp, heavy curtains blocking the light from outside, but a warm flickering light drew Mitch toward the door to what had to be the bedroom. The rich stink of a cigar filtered out into the sitting room and Mitch let the trail of light and smell draw him forward until he was standing with his palm flat on the door. He took a deep breath, smoothed his other hand down the front of his blue oxford shirt, the household uniform, and pushed the door open.

David lay on top of gleaming, dark ruby-colored sheets on a bed the size of Mitch's living quarters. Naked, one knee bent and dropped out to the side, one arm propped behind his head, the other lax on his thigh as if to frame his cock and balls where they lay heavy and exposed, flushed and half-hard--the only part of his body not hairless and ivory-pale.

Mitch felt his heart race, his chest tight and uneasy. Lord Douglas was nowhere to be seen, and if he were found alone with the lord's naked body slave--

If this had been a ruse and the lord had not called for his attendance--

Mitch had been taught enough times, enough ways, that he would never forget: when your body is not your own, using it as the master has not commanded is a treasonous kind of theft.

"Relax, Mitch." Lord Douglas himself stepped through a door Mitch hadn't noticed. He wore a velvety black robe, belt tied loosely around his waist, and held a cigar in his hand, smoke curling around in front of his face. "That is your name, correct?"

"Yes," Mitch answered. "Yes, my lord."

"Please," Lord Douglas gestured towards the bed. "Make yourself comfortable."

As if that were possible. "I'm comfortable here, my lord." Mitch glanced at David and saw him observing the interaction with slit-eyed languor.

"Perhaps you misunderstood me." Lord Douglas sat down in an upholstered claw-foot chair across from the bed and drew in smoke from his cigar. "Take off your clothes and get on the bed." Another draw on the cigar as Mitch stood frozen in place. "_Please_." A sarcastic twist on the last word as he raised his eyebrows in the direction of the bed.

"I'm not a body slave!" Mitch shouted, the trained slave inside of him cursing himself all the while. "There are laws for God's sake. I won't--"

"You will. David asked for you, and it entertains me to see him pleased." Lord Douglas shook his head and laughed, a dry sound that had no mirth. "And did you really think those little rules applied to men like me?"

"I--" Mitch choked as the words he wanted to say ran up against the words he knew he was expected to say.

"You're sorry, I know. Just do as I said and all is forgotten. I'm in no mood to ruin David's special night with violence." He smiled indulgently at his body slave, and David returned the expression, running a hand idly up his hip. "Just do as I asked. Now."

Mitch undid the top button of his shirt, his fingers shaking so that it took too long, too long in the silence being watched. He gave in and pulled the shirt over his head, his t-shirt following. He felt, in that moment, more conscious of the brand on his arm than he had been in months. He knelt down to untie his shoes and then stood up, kicking off the shoes as he struggled to focus on undoing his belt, button and zipper.

When his pants fell down around his ankles Mitch felt himself back in the middle of the days after he'd been seized by Commerce. Standing in line with other debtors and petty criminals, dressed only in his briefs and socks for long hours of evaluation, testing, observation--he had hardly been able to care then, still so lost in the haze of his grief. Now, there was no haze save for the smoke from Lord Douglas's cigar. He'd thought the worst case scenario would be getting contracted to a company that wanted him for dangerous labor, and even that hadn't sounded so unwelcome.

Toy to a body slave and his master--Mitch pushed back the thought and stripped off his underwear, lifting up his feet to pull off his socks. The body slave pushed himself up to lean on his elbows and watched with his heavy-lidded hazel eyes as Mitch walked closer to the bed. A quick glance over to the chair was more than enough to see Lord Douglas loosening the tie of his robe, slipping his hand between his legs.

Mitch stood next to the bed and looked down at David's slim, circumcised cock, harder now and bobbing up from the nest of his balls. "What do you--" He rasped out, then coughed to clear the bad taste in his mouth. "What do you want me to do?"

David wrapped a hand around his bicep, tugging him closer. "Come here."

Mitch hung his head and gave in, kneeling his way up onto the high mattress until his legs touched David's. David drew him down closer, kissing his mouth, his neck, and then hot breath murmured in his ear. "Just pretend he's not here. I'll make it so good you won't care."

Mitch closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, feeling his own cheek brush against David's smoother face, as he spoke into the curve of his ear. "And if I resist?"

"He'll sell you to somebody who'll give you even less choice in your extra-curricular activities. Lord Cruise perhaps."

Mitch's gut churned at the thought. He'd seen Lord Cruise when he'd visited Lord Douglas's estate--parading around the grounds with the boy, practically a child, he kept for his body slave. He'd seen the collar on the boy's neck and the fear in his bottle-green eyes when he'd tripped and scraped his leg on a landscaping brick.

"What do you want me to do?" Mitch whispered, a desperate kind of surrender filling his chest.

"Just let me suck you."

Mitch nodded, and as David pushed at him to roll over and lay back on the bed Mitch let his body fall against the cool satin sheets. David's hands on his hips were warm, and his mouth almost hot. The sensation of those full lips on him, practiced mouth softening to pull him in deeper, was too much when it had been too many years since anybody had touched him that way. Getting hard felt like a failure, but there was nothing he could do. His ass tightened, his back arched as his hips pushed up into David's face, and when he curled his hands into fists in the sheets he wasn't sure whether he was trying to stop his arousal or to stop from coming yet--not yet, not from so little.

Suddenly the warm sucking pressure around his cock disappeared, and Mitch shifted his hips on the bed, opening his eyes to see David climbing up on top of him. One knee thrown over his, long slender cock bobbing against his chest, and then David was sitting down slowly. So slick and so tight, the ring of his ass swallowed Mitch whole, and Mitch sobbed out a breath, done with resisting the pleasure.

As David rose and fell over him, Mitch groped out and wrapped his hand around David's cock. God, a decade since he'd held another man's pulse in his hand, but his fingers remembered how to do it. The two of them thrust in time together, and Mitch let his head fall back to look up at the ceiling as sweat slicked his movements on the slippery sheets. David groaned and came, spurting onto Mitch's chest, and Mitch let his hand drop back down to the bed as he felt himself getting close. So close.

Lost inside the sensations of his body, he hadn't noticed Lord Douglas standing up and walking closer. Hadn't noticed that David's hands were wrapped tight around his forearms, his weight and surprising strength holding Mitch down. Didn't notice until a hand clenched tight over his mouth, another pinching his nose closed, and there was no air. No. Air.

All he could see when his eyes flew open in panic was Lord Douglas's face, far too close, the lines of it dissolving into black spots and sparkles. He fought, bucking his body up against David's but he was still inside, still fucking hard, and he couldn't find enough purchase on the bed to push David off. To free his hands. To save himself.

Just on the brink of everything going dark he felt his balls tighten and he couldn't help coming, thrusting, flooding up into David's ass, gasping at the air that was finally, finally back in his lungs again. David's weight was gone then, and Mitch turned over, away from the shadow of Lord Douglas still standing by the bedside. He lifted his hands to his face and ground them into his eyes to wipe away his tears as he tried to get his breathing back into rhythm.

When he sat up and looked back to the other side of the bed, he saw David lounging on his side, smiling like the cat that had got the canary. "Why?" Mitch asked, his throat raw.

"Because I wanted you to understand," Lord Douglas answered, running a hand over David's naked hip, "that everything that matters to you is up to me."

~~~

Mitch walked back to the South Wing, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned over his pants, a violation of dress code he'd never risked before but he somehow doubted anybody would care. The halls were empty, in any case. Silent in a way they never were during the day when the whole staff was busy. The whole staff of slaves, and Mitch wondered how many had made that trip up to the far end of the North Wing. How many, and he thought of the girls in the housekeeping department. The boys. That boy who had trailed along at Lord Cruise's side like an obedient and well-kept dog.

Inside his room, he hung over the small sink in the corner and vomited up bile, gagging on the taste of Lord Douglas's hand he couldn't rub off his lips. He ran the water and scrubbed at his hands, washing off the flaky crust of spunk from the body slave. When his hand smelled of nothing but soap, he brushed his teeth and then took the two steps necessary to sink down on his bed. On the bedside table, underneath the lamp, he found a bottle--a fifth of whiskey. Distilled in the style of old Canada, a better brand than he'd ever been able to drink. Better than they'd ever been able to afford to stock at their restaurant. Better than anything he could have bought for Arlene, and it was what? Payment? Consolation?

Mitch thought about hurling the bottle to the floor, watching amber liquid that was worth half a month's mortgage for a free man soak into the thin carpeting, but more than he wanted to see that he needed to not be sober. Seemed a shame to drink something this good straight from the bottle, but he couldn't walk down the hall to the kitchen and find a glass. He couldn't risk somebody seeing him with his rumpled clothes and the half-moon imprints from manicured fingernails he could feel on his face.

The first couple of swallows burned, but after that the whiskey went down smooth, coating his brain in a soothing dullness. Halfway through the bottle, he started to get undressed. The t-shirt stuck, and Jesus--he'd forgotten about his chest. His steps only wobbled slightly as he walked back over to the sink. He folded up the t-shirt and dampened it, using it to scrub the dried gluey come from his chest and stomach. He threw the shirts in his hamper and pulled off his belt.

Commerce hadn't let him keep anything from his life as a free man. He'd argued, there at the beginning, to be allowed to keep his belt. It was nothing special, nothing that would sell for anything more than a few dollars in a resale shop, but his wife had given it to him. She had given it to him, and Commerce took it away. The irony was that this belt, issued as part of his uniform from the household supplies he now managed, looked almost exactly the same. A simple black belt.

Mitch stepped over to the closet to hang the belt on its hook inside the door, but after he opened the door he stopped. The belt felt good in his hands, and he looped the end through the buckle. Slipped his hand through and tightened the belt on his wrist. His hand darkened with trapped blood, and he knew what his face had looked like, on that fancy bed in that fancy room. It could look just the same in his simple room, and he thought that if this new life were a punishment he'd been punished enough.

When your body doesn't belong to you, harming it is the highest form of theft. When your life is forfeit to a contract that cannot be renegotiated, taking it yourself is the only way to break the contract.

Mitch took a deep drink from the whiskey bottle and cinched the belt into a loop before closing it into the heavy wooden closet door. He stood on the balls of his feet and slipped his head through the loop. All he had to do was let his knees go and slump forward until he passed out; with the alcohol in his system he knew he was more than halfway there already. All he had to do was not save himself. He leaned forward and immediately felt the leather biting into the skin of his throat, cutting off his blood, cutting off his air. Just like before.

Just like before, when the air in his lungs ran out of oxygen, he couldn't help but panic, couldn't help but fight. He couldn't help but struggle back up on his toes and yank his head out of the belt roughly enough that he scraped his cheek on the edge of the leather. One shaky step took him to his bed and he fell asleep imagining what Arlene would think about him now, about what he'd become.

In the morning, when he woke up in the still-made bed wearing his pants and shoes, he could barely stand to touch the belt he'd left hanging from the closet door. But it was another day, just another day, and he had work that needed to be done.

~~~

He never knew whether it was Lord Douglas or the body slave David who was more discomforted by his presence in the household, but within a month he found himself in the back of a car being driven to an Escrow hostel. He was purchased by the mistress of a much smaller household. Mistress Crawford spend most of her time on the East Coast, but she maintained a house in California, and Mitch was expected to manage the household staff and purchasing. She rarely spoke to him, and the worst part of his job was dealing with the condescending lead purchasing agent in New York. The days slipped by and he rarely let himself think about his former contract.

When Mistress Crawford remarried, the West Coast household was folded into her new husband's, and once again Mitch sat in Escrow waiting to learn of an outcome in which he had no say. The agent his new master sent to pick him up was an interesting specimen. Shorter than Mitch by a good four or five inches with scraggly long hair and tattoos showing through his t-shirt, the man wasn't the kind of professional normally sent to conduct official business. Mitch's stomach sank with the thought that this was a bad sign--that he was worth so little now that some kind of field hand or auto mechanic had been sent to retrieve him.

"Hey," the man said with a friendly twang that reminded Mitch of his family back in Texas, lost to him forever now. "I'm Chris Kane."


End file.
